


Kurill Prime

by Vorta_Scholar



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Cultural Customs, Alien Culture, Angst, Death, Fluff, Planet Destruction, Trektober, Trektober 2020, Vorta Culture, trektober2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:55:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vorta_Scholar/pseuds/Vorta_Scholar
Summary: Five survivors of the Rondac III massacre go on a journey back to the Vorta Homeworld, Kurill Prime.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Kurill Prime

**Author's Note:**

> For Trektober 2020, Day 12
> 
> Prompt: Alien cultural customs

Keevan woke to the sound of sirens. An alarm of some kind. Just outside his cell, he saw the Jem’Hadar guard listening intently to a transmission, his fingers pressed hard to his earpiece.

“What is it?” Keevan asked, barely a centimeter away from the forcefield.

“An attack,” the guard said.

“An attack? What kind of attack? How severe?”

“Sit down, Vorta,” the guard said gruffly.

“Where are they? They’re here, aren’t they?” Keevan asked, almost frantically.

“I said sit down.”

“Answer me!”

“I do not have to answer you,” the Jem’Hadar said. “You are no longer worthy of a command.”

“I deserve to know!”

The Jem’Hadar scoffed. “You only deserve what’s coming to us all.”

“They’re here to kill us,” Keevan said, quieter, taking a half-step back from the forcefield. “They’re here to kill us, aren’t they? Who is it? The Federation?”

The guard did not answer, but continued to listen to the transmission.

“The Cardassians? Who?”

“I have orders to kill you,” the guard said after a moment, raising his rifle but not yet pointing it at him.

“Why? That doesn’t make any sense if they’re just going to kill us all anyway,” Keevan said.

“If it is the Federation,” the Jem’Hadar said slowly, “we don’t need you becoming their... _prisoner_ again.”

“They wouldn’t keep me prisoner again,” Keevan said. “They would kill me, too, this time. I’m dead either way. No matter what.”

“Exactly.”

The rifle whirred to life and the Jem’Hadar guard reached for the panel to deactivate the forcefield.

The next thing Keevan knew, he heard a deafening bang and a force which sent him flying back into the far wall of his cell. When he regained his feet, he saw that the blast had blown out the side of the building just in front of his cell and killed the guard on impact. The power had also been taken out, and the forcefield with it.

Scrambling out of the cell, he grabbed the guard’s rifle and took off down what was left of the corridor. The corridor was scattered with the bodies of Jem’Hadar soldiers who had taken their lives after taking those of the various prisoners of war and other criminals, Dominion, Federation, and Cardassian alike, whose bodies lay motionless inside their cells. He wondered if he had been the only one to survive, when down another corridor to his right he heard someone screaming.

“Stop it!” another voice shouted over the screams. “Just stop it! It’s not going to do any good. We’re dead anyway. Shut up before you alert the guards.”

He ran in the direction of the voices, his finger on the rifle’s trigger. He wasn’t sure what he was going to find.

“No,” the first voice sobbed between screams. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“Shut up! I told you to shut up!”

At the end of the corridor, in two adjacent cells, he found two other Vorta, still locked behind their forcefields. Apparently the power was still on this far into the building.

The woman stopped screaming and looked at him, her eyes wide.

“How did you escape?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said her neighbor, a Vorta man. “What’d you do to get them to let you out, Keevan?”

“I’ll tell you later, if we make it,” he said as he punched in the security code he’d memorized from hearing and seeing his guards do it so frequently on his own cell, and thankfully, the same security clearance worked for these as well, shutting off the forcefields to both cells. “Come on.”

The three of them hurried back down the corridor and up the one Keevan had been running through when he’d first heard them. He could see the end, and beyond, the main entrance to the prison. All the gates closing off the different sections had sprung open. It seemed only too easy. A straight shot to freedom. He didn’t want to trust it, but he had no choice. And if the guard was right, they were all dead anyway.

Something grabbed his attention, though, just before they reached the end.

“Hey!” a voice called from one of the cells they had just passed. “Hey, come back! Please!”

“Oh, we really don’t have time for this,” he muttered to himself, and turned around.

His companions stopped in the middle of the corridor, looking back as he stopped in front of a cell about five meters back and saw him putting in the code to let a fourth Vorta out, who quickly joined them in their race down the corridor.

Just before they reached the entryway into the main lobby, he held his arm out to stop them as he peered around each corner. The room was filled with an eerie silence as all around lay the lifeless bodies of half a dozen Jem’Hadar guards and their Vorta commander. The light was gone from her eyes, which stared, cold and blank, at the ceiling.

“Eris,” the woman murmured, clutching Keevan’s sleeve.

“What?” Keevan shot back, harsher than he had intended, making her flinch back, letting go of his sleeve.

“ _Eris_ ,” she said again, louder this time, her voice breaking. “She was...my...my _friend_.”

Her neighbor scoffed, earning a sharp but somewhat confused glare from Keevan.

“Well, I am so sorry to hear that,” he said. “But we’ve really got to get out of here. You’ll have time to mourn later.”

She straightened up some and her expression sobered. “Vorta do not mourn,” she said.

“Right,” he said softly, nodding. “Alright. Let’s go.”

He headed toward the front door, but was stopped abruptly by another hand grabbing him by the crook of his elbow.

“Wait.”

“Why?” he asked, turning to face the first man he had saved.

“Keevan. Listen,” he said. “They’re still out there. The assault isn’t over. We should wait in here.”

“What makes you think we’re any safer in here than out there?” Keevan asked.

“Hold on. I’ll check,” he said, his tone slightly mocking. He turned and knelt beside a fallen Jem’Hadar soldier, snatching off his communicator and pinning it to his own shirt. “Attention,” he said, taking on a gruffer, more commanding tone, “This is Fourth Virak’kara. If anyone is alive, please report.”

They all stood in silence as they waited for a response. Outside, the attack raged on, but the prison went untouched. Maybe their attackers were satisfied that everyone inside was dead. Several minutes went by as they waited, before the man snatched the communicator off his shirt again and threw it to the ground.

“Nobody. We’re alone,” he said. “We should be safe here until the commotion dies down out there.”

“Alright,” Keevan said. “We should move to the cafeteria. That is the most interior location, so it’s probably safest, and there we’ll have access to food and water.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” the woman said.

Her neighbor nodded. “Lead the way,” he said.

The four of them cut across the lobby and continued in silence down another corridor littered here and there with the bodies of dead Jem’Hadar soldiers. Keevan retrieved another gun from one of the dead soldiers he passed and handed it to the woman, who was keeping close beside him, hoping it would help her feel safer to be armed.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Kilana,” she said.

“Keevan,” he responded.

“I know.”

He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, everyone talks about, well,” she said. “You know.”

“I’m not sure I do,” he said.

“Um.”

“Are you referring to the fact that my predecessor was so humiliatingly killed by a band of idiot Ferengi just before they turned his body into some kind of remote control puppet that they left to rot on an abandoned space station? Or do you mean the way that he killed his entire unit just to get a safer and more accommodating place to sleep?”

“The-the second thing,” she stammered. Then, a moment later, added, “I wasn’t actually aware of the first part. About the Ferengi.”

“Oh,” he said.

“But he was in a Federation prison,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And they let him live?”

“Yes. His death was entirely by accident.”

“Well,” she said, smiling, “that’s hopeful, right?”

“I doubt they would be so kind this time around,” he said. “And anyhow, a prison’s a prison. You wouldn’t be much better off there than here.”

“What are your plans for after the attack ends?” she asked. “We won’t be able to stay here. Everything on the surface of this planet will have been destroyed by the time we can attempt to leave.”

“There is a...a Federation ship that was captured,” he said. “Just a small one. A runabout. They kept it so that they could analyze Federation technology. It’s in an engineering lab near the cloning facility, just a few kilometers from here.”

“And what? You’ll commandeer this ship, if it’s even still in one piece, and go where?” she asked.

“Home,” he said.

“We have no home.”

“Kurill Prime,” he said. “The Founders left there four years ago after they determined they had reaped all the benefits they could.”

“What do you think we’ll find when we get there?”

“We?”

“Of course you’re taking us with you,” she said. “You can’t just leave the three of us here after all this work to save us.”

“Of course,” he said. “If any of the three of you wish to come with me, you may. And as for your other question, I don’t know. Maybe there will be some Vorta left. Maybe not. I just know that the Founders left Kurill Prime four years ago, and it’s the closest thing to a home that any of us has.”

“Alright,” she said, nodding. “And you’re taking me with you. Even if they don’t want to go. Promise me that.”

He looked at her again. “You’re sure?”

“I have nothing left,” she said. “None of us do. We had lives and families before they took it all from us and made us into these sensory-deprived, obedient little pawns. We were happy and peaceful and socially oriented, and they took that away. If they’re really gone from Kurill Prime, I’d love to take it back for what Vorta are left once this war is over.”

“Hm,” he intoned with a slight laugh, facing forward once more. “I guess that means you don’t believe their little story about the evil mob of solids chasing the Founder, and the primitive Vorta saving him.”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “Propaganda. Just like everything else they said.”

“It sounds like you and I at least are on the same page,” he said. “What can you tell me about him?” he asked, glancing back at the man who had been her neighbor.

“Borath?” she asked, following his gaze. “I honestly can’t tell where his loyalties lie right now. But he was smart enough to keep you from walking us right out into a warzone, and he knew how to impersonate a Jem’Hadar soldier well enough. So I’d say he’s been helpful so far.”

“Do you know anything about the other?”

“Gelnon,” she said. “Glorified babysitter.”

“And his stance on the war?”

“He got into prison somehow.”

“Good point.”

A few moments later, they reached the prison cafe, which was eerily empty and completely silent.

“We should probably block the door, don’t you think?” Borath suggested once they were all inside.

“You think the Cardassians would send foot soldiers in here?” Keevan asked.

“It’s possible,” he said. “Or a surviving group of Jem’Hadar might storm in.”

“Alright,” Keevan said. “Let’s move a table over and turn it onto its side.

It took all four of them to lift the table and carry it over to the door, which Keevan took as a good sign. If it was that heavy, it should be a good enough barricade.

There was a hole in the ceiling, large enough to let in a considerable amount of light and noise from outside, but not large enough that it would alert the attackers to their location, or that they were really worried the roof would cave in.

Keevan watched as Gelnon climbed over and ducked under the series of barriers which separated the main dining area from the service area. Gelnon threw one leg onto the counter and pulled himself up onto it and hopped down to the other side.

“Wonder what he’s up to,” Borath said.

“I’m not sure,” Keevan said slowly, watching as Gelnon disappeared through a door into the kitchen.

“Should someone go check?” Kilana asked.

“No,” Keevan said. “Let's just wait and see what he does.”

“Speaking of which,” Borath said. “How long do you think we should wait until venturing out?”

“Probably a few days after the attack,” Keevan said. “In case they come back.”

“Okay. And what are your plans for...after that?” he asked. “This area is pretty isolated. The only thing for miles is the cloning facility. They probably destroyed that, too. We still have power for right now, but we won’t forever, and with no transportation, we’ll probably be stuck here. And if everyone thinks the Cardassians destroyed Rondac III, then...no one will come looking for us.”

“There’s a Federation runabout,” Keevan said.

“Where?”

“An engineering lab. They took it to study Federation technology.”

“So, if that wasn’t destroyed, you’ll take it...where?”

“Kurill,” Keevan said.

“Oh, great,” Borath said, laughing and throwing his hands up. “You’re going to take us to another empty, desolated planet with no people, no power, limited, possibly non-functional technology, probably no food and—”

“Water.”

They all turned suddenly to see Gelnon standing in front of them, four bottles of water tucked between his arm and his body. He held one out, and they looked at it, before finally, Kilana took it.

“Thank you,” she said.

He passed two others to Keevan and Borath.

“Sometimes having a glorified babysitter around pays off,” he said. “We tend to think of things like this.”

“You heard that,” Kilana said.

“Mhm,” he intoned, taking a long drink from his own bottle.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “I also heard,” he went on, turning to Keevan, “you’re planning on going to Kurill.”

“That’s right.”

“Why Kurill?”

“It’s home, right?” Keevan asked, unscrewing the lid from his bottle.

“Home?” Gelnon said. “Kurill hasn’t been home to anything but corruption and complete apathy for over half a century. What do you expect to find on Kurill?”

“I don’t know,” Keevan said. “But it’s better than crawling back to the Dominion or being captured by the Federation or killed by the Cardassians.”

“We’re dead anyway, right?” Gelnon said, smiling. He raised his little blue metal water bottle as though he was making a toast, and he laughed before taking another drink. “Fine. Let’s go to Kurill.”

* * *

The next morning, Kilana woke to find that a dead silence had laid itself over the room like a heavy, dark blanket. A little rain had come through the hole in the roof, soaking through her socks and wetting the ankles of her trousers. She sat up and snatched her socks off, tossing them under the table next to the one she had fallen asleep under. The other three Vorta were still asleep, she saw, lying curled up in strange variations on a fetal position, each under a different table. Gelnon’s idea. For protection, in case another attack came. The tables would keep debris from crushing them to death or giving them a concussion, so he said. She wasn’t so sure, but it seemed worth a shot.

And apparently it wasn’t a terrible idea, because they were all still alive.

She crawled out from under her table and stood, and she quietly made her way toward the kitchen, climbing over the counter the same way she had seen Gelnon do the night before.

“Computer, one glass of rippleberry juice,” she said to the replicator, and took it when it appeared.

She took a sip, and immediately spat it back out. It tasted bitter and metallic.

“Hmph,” she half-scoffed, half-sobbed, placing the glass back in the replicator and pressing the button to send it away again.

“What was wrong with it?” a voice behind her asked, and she jumped, nearly screaming as she turned and saw Keevan standing in the doorway.

“Nothing,” she said. “Well, probably nothing. I wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“They... _turned_ my tastebuds,” she said. “Part of my punishment for having a loose tongue.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said.

“Did they…” she started to ask, her voice trailing off.

“Experiment on me?” he asked with a bitter laugh. “I think we all got something, right?”

She nodded.

“You should eat something if you’re hungry,” he said.

She shook her head. “Everything tastes…”

She tried to find a suitable adjective, but there wasn’t one. Oddly, she didn’t think she really needed to add one. Those two words were enough. Before they had done what they did, she was blissfully ignorant to what anything tasted like, numb to all the different tastes and sensations. But now, everything had a taste, and it was all so overwhelmingly strong.

“Computer, plain yogurt,” he said to the replicator, and a bowl appeared. He turned back to her. “Tastes like nothing and it goes down fairly easy. You’ll be fine.”

She looked at him for a long moment before retrieving it. “You, too?” she asked quietly, and she took a bite of it.

“That and about fifty other _alterations_ ,” he said. “They figured out apparently that torture and genetic experimentation are far more effective punishments than the death penalty.” He smiled, but his expression was pained. She forced a smile in return. “Probably more entertaining, too. Computer, Bajoran oatmeal.”

He took his bowl and went to sit on the island counter in the middle of the room to eat his breakfast. They ate in near silence, the only sound coming from their spoons tapping the insides of their bowls every now and then.

After she finished, she put the bowl back and got a glass of water, which she drank slowly as she sat across from him on the other counter, looking at the distance between her feet and the ground.

“What do you think we’ll actually find when we get to Kurill Prime?” she asked, her voice hushed.

“Nothing,” he said after a moment. “Worst case scenario, absolutely nothing. No people, no buildings, now plants or wildlife. Just a completely desolate wasteland.”

She nodded. “And the best case scenario?”

“A few people,” he said. “A small settlement maybe. Power. Or no power. Doesn’t matter. People, surviving. That’s what I want to find. Our people, alive.”

“That would be nice,” she said. “What if all the Founders aren’t gone? What if some stuck around?”

“Why would they? They destroyed Vorta civilization, burned it to the ground, took what they wanted and left the rest. They killed those who weren’t worthy of _continuing_ , let more just die because those who weren’t worthy of cloning weren’t worth healthcare and basic needs. If there’s anything left, I can’t see any Founders wanting to stick around.”

“There might be some who were sympathetic,” she said.

“What? Like Odo? The Federation’s token Changeling?”

“He’s not Federation,” she said.

“Bajoran, Federation,” he said. “They’re the same.”

“I don’t think so. Anyway, my point is not all Changelings are the same.”

“But most of them are.”

“And most Vorta are mindless, brainwashed Dominion bootlickers,” she countered.

He let out a single laugh, shaking his head as a small smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Alright,” he said. “You got me there.”

“I think we’ll find people,” she said. “Maybe even a Changeling or two.”

“What, like a whole town?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“Wishful thinking,” he said.

He scraped the inside of his bowl, gathering up the last of the bland, grayish oatmeal from around the edges for one last bite before hopping down and returning it to the replicator.

“There’s nothing wrong with keeping your hopes up,” she said.

“I didn’t say there was.”

“On the way to the engineering lab, I think we should check out the cloning facility,” she said.

He wasn’t sure where this was coming from. It was so far from what they had been talking about in his mind. He wouldn’t have even considered. No doubt, that was what the Cardassians were there to destroy, to ensure the end of the Dominion, if not immediately, in the near future because without their Vorta and the Jem’Hadar backups, the Founders would have no chance of winning the war.

“Maybe you’re letting those hopes get a little too high,” he said, coming to stand beside her.

“Even just one more survivor would make a difference. Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t think you’ll find anything there that you would want to see,” he said.

“What if they didn’t get them all?” she asked.

“The Cardassians are very thorough,” he said. “The wreckage there is probably quite severe.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “I just have to see for myself that we aren’t leaving anyone behind.”

“If seeing everything destroyed will make you feel better.”

“It won’t, but at least I’ll know I did everything I could.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

The door opened, and Borath made his way past them toward the replicator.

“What are we talking about? Did I miss anything?” he asked, then turned toward them. “I’m not interrupting anything I shouldn’t, am I?”

“Good morning to you, too, Borath,” Keevan said.

“Good morning,” Borath said, smiling. “It sounds like the Cardassians left some time in the night. Computer, rippleberry smoothie.” He took the smoothie out of the replicator and took a sip of it from the straw sticking out of the glass. “I say we wait three, four days, then head for that ship you mentioned.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Keevan said, glancing over at Kilana, who was staring wistfully at Borath’s smoothie. “But I think we should stop by the cloning facility first.”

“What? Why?”

“Just to see if there are any Vorta left,” he said, shrugging in hopes of making the request and the intention seem more casual.

“Alright,” Borath said. “But I’m pretty sure all you’re gonna find is a lot of rubble and mangled bodies.”

“Probably so,” Keevan said, “but it’s worth checking anyway.”

“I agree with Keevan,” Kilana said, jumping in. “Just one more person would make a whole lot of difference. And at least we’d know we didn’t leave anyone behind.”

“Right,” Keevan said, nodding.

“Okay,” Borath said. “Three days here, then to the cloning facility, and then to that ship. I want as much distance between me and this planet as possible.”

“Agreed,” Kilana said.

“Me, too,” Gelnon said, appearing in the doorway.

“It sounds like we have our plan, then,” Keevan said.

* * *

The next three days went by much the same. They woke up, had breakfast, milled about the cafe and the surrounding corridors for several hours, had dinner, and then crawled back under their respective tables to sleep. They spoke surprisingly little. There wasn’t much to discuss, really, and none of them had much experience with conversation anyway. They weren’t diplomats. It wasn’t their job. Their jobs were to command Jem’Hadar units, distribute white, maintain order. They didn’t fraternize with their guards or their unit, and of them, only Kilana had much experience with actually interacting with other Vorta at all.

She would attempt conversation, and usually Borath or Gelnon would answer whatever initial question she had posed, and then went back to whatever they had been doing before. If they could have put up a wall between her and themselves, she was almost certain they would have. Keevan was a bit more willing to talk, but she found there were certain subjects she couldn’t broach without him retreating.

On the third evening, the last before they were set to venture out of the prison, she found him alone in a room just down the hall from the cafe. It was some sort of supply closet. He was examining the things on the shelves and dropping them into a bag.

“What’ve you found?” she asked.

“First aid kits,” he said, holding one out before dropping it into the bag. “Cleaning supplies.” Another small case followed the first aid kit. “Tricorders.” He dropped four into the bag. “Comm badges. Phasers.” Four of each of those as well.

“You don’t think we’ll find all this on the runabout?” she asked.

“Knowing them, they stripped it down, left nothing inside,” he said. “I mean, maybe they didn’t, but I think it’s better to be prepared in case they did.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, it’s not much, but it should be enough,” he said, closing the bag. “Just until we make it to Kurill.”

“Are there replicators on a ship like that?” she asked. “Or will we need to bring food, too?”

“I was with the unit that captured this one, and I got to look around inside,” he said. “There were two replicators, but we should assume the Founders took one of them out or dismantled it to study it. As long as they left the other one alone, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Good,” she nodded.

She took a slow step toward him, then another, all while he looked back at her, eyes wide with uncertainty. He didn’t know what she was doing until she was so close that her body was almost touching his. Placing a hand on the back of his neck, she pulled him down into a soft but tentative kiss. He didn’t move, and she felt his body go tense under her touch and she stopped.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I thought…” she said, taking a step back.

“No. I’m sorry. I…”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I made an incorrect assumption.”

“I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea,” he said, “but I’m not interested in...that sort of thing.”

“Oh,” she said, her face a shade of violet darker than before.

“Don’t worry about it. We should, uh,” he said, hesitantly stepping around her toward the door. “We should get back, don’t you think?”

“Of course.”

They walked in silence back to the cafe. She could tell he wasn’t upset, and she was thankful for that. Nevertheless, she was still kicking herself for doing what she did. She should have known better than to have thought that was what he wanted from her. But all too often when men were as nice as he had been to her, that was what they were after, and it had been her job to provide what they wanted if it meant it got her what she needed. Safety, in this case. Protection. The basic necessities she needed to stay alive. But perhaps Vorta men were different, or perhaps it was just this one. She wasn’t sure, and she was too embarrassed to ask him to elaborate on just what he had meant.

When they returned to the cafe, they found Gelnon and Borath sitting at one of the tables, a large bowl of popcorn between them. As they ate, every now and then, one of them would find an unpopped kernel, which he would then flick in the direction of the far wall in a sort of competition to see who could get his kernel to go the furthest. So far, there were several dozen scattered across the floor. Coming in this late in the game, it was difficult to tell how they kept score or even knew which kernel belonged to whom, or if it even mattered.

Keevan approached, and he dropped his bag of supplies on the table just a few centimeters away from their popcorn.

“What’s that?” Borath asked.

“Things we might need.”

“Like what?”

He opened the bag and rummaged around for the comm badges and the phasers. “For tomorrow, especially,” he said. “And when we get to Kurill, in case we find something that we don’t expect.”

“Nice,” Borath said, picking up one of the phasers and starting to examine the different settings.

“I also found a first aid kit and some other supplies,” Keevan said. “Just things we might need in case of an emergency.”

“Good, good,” Gelnon nodded. He peered into the bag to get an idea of what kinds of things Keevan was referring to. “Alright. I’d say we’re pretty much set for tomorrow.”

“And you’re still insisting on going to that cloning facility?” Borath asked, still fiddling with the phaser.

“Yes,” Keevan said. “We just need to make sure we aren’t leaving anybody behind.”

“Alright,” Borath said with a sigh. “The more the merrier, right?”

“I doubt we’ll find anything, but, you know, just in case,” Keevan said.

“I think,” Borath said, pointing the phaser jokingly at Keevan, and lowering it again when he saw the way it made him flinch, “you just enjoy seeing dead Dominionese bastards.”

Keevan said nothing, but just stared at him, earning a laugh.

“Can’t say I blame you,” Borath said. “A dead Jem’Hadar never broke my heart. It’s just a little more unsettling when they’re Vorta.”

“Alright,” Gelnon said, slapping his palms down onto the surface of the table. “Well. I don’t know about you all, but I think I’m going to get some rest in anticipation of whatever we find out there tomorrow.”

“Good idea,” Borath agreed, and set the phaser down before pushing himself out of his seat and ducking underneath the next table over.

* * *

Rondac III was a wasteland. There was no debating that. The dust had begun to clear, which made breathing only minorly difficult. Everything was utterly destroyed. Even on the outside, the prison looked like a demolition site. But perhaps if they had survived, maybe so had someone else, maybe even a few people.

Kilana wasn’t ready to give up hope.

Keevan hoped she was right.

Gelnon and Borath were both a little more cynical, but they followed regardless, still determined to follow them all the way to Kurill Prime if it meant getting off this desolated trash heap that could have once been called a planet.

It took an hour on foot to get to the cloning facility, which looked to be in much worse a state than the prison had been. It seemed that had in fact been the Cardassians’ primary target.

Kilana took a few steps toward it before turning back to see the three others had not moved.

“You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “But I would appreciate it if at least one of you did.”

“It was Keevan’s idea,” Borath said.

“Yeah, Keevan, what’s the deal? Why aren’t you rushing right on in there?” Gelnon asked. “Scared of what you’ll find?”

“No,” Keevan said. “I’m not worried. Are you?”

“You’re not getting me in there,” Gelnon said, raising his hands and shaking his head.

“Alright. I’ll let you know if we happen to see you in there, if you like.”

Borath must have found that quite humorous, because he laughed.

“You, too,” Keevan said, and he stopped.

Keevan followed Kilana into the facility, holding his breath and bracing himself for whatever lay inside. But when they entered, they found the main lobby to be empty and still lit by the panels overhead, which had somehow not broken but were flickering and buzzing faintly.

“Creepy,” she said.

“Do you have any memory of the layout of this building?” he asked.

“No,” she said, turning to look at him, her eyes wide. “Do you?”

“No.”

“Alright. Well. Down Corridor A then.”

The corridor was not marked as such. It was only when they were about halfway down the unlit, musty corridor that he realized it had been a joke.

She entered the first door they came to, passing into a room which was lit by a dim bluish purple glow coming from underneath a row of seven bio-incubators. The glass over top of each one was shattered. Stasis was no longer intact, leaving the bodies inside unbreathing, pulseless. Several of them had been cut when the glass broke, he noticed, their pale skin spattered with dry, deep purple blood. His stomach seemed to flip, and he found himself taking several steps back without meaning to.

“It’s alright,” she said. “They probably didn’t feel it.”

“Right,” he murmured.

They moved back out to the corridor and continued on to the next room, and the next, finding them in much the same conditions, with the bodies of Vorta and Jem’Hadar in varying levels of mangling. Some couldn’t even be identified by species.

Eventually, they reached what must have been one of the innermost rooms, where they found a row of seven more incubators. The one closest to the door was completely shattered like the rest, and inside he saw a Vorta woman, the half of her body nearest the door completely mangled, while the other side appeared only to have minor injuries. The next four were also shattered, with their inhabitants bearing only minor injuries, but dead nonetheless, likely having suffocated once their lungs were forced to attempt to breathe on their own. The power was out completely on the sixth, leaving the body inside preserved in its dark tank, unharmed, but also dead.

The seventh, however, was still on, the violet lamps glowing and the life support whirring gently. The corner of the glass was cracked, but inside lay just what they had been hoping for: a Vorta who was most likely still alive.

She pushed past him toward it, peering into the glass before frantically tapping the controls on the screen to see if there was any identifying information.

“Weyoun,” she said quietly. “It’s a Weyoun.”

“They must have put him this far in anticipating an attack like this,” Keevan said. “He’s very important to them.”

“It says this is the ninth, but he doesn’t have the memories from the eighth,” she said, looking at Keevan.

“I’ve met the eighth Weyoun, and I must say I’m not impressed,” he said. “It’s fine if he doesn’t have his memories.”

“Oh, but the seventh was terrible, too,” she said. “And if this one is like him…”

“Is there a way to,” he said, stepping closer to look at the screen, “to, I don’t know, delete memories?”

“You don’t think that would be bad?”

“I don’t know. If we got rid of seven, he’d revert back to six, right?”

“I assume, so, but you can never be completely certain.”

“Did you ever meet the sixth?”

“No,” she said. “I heard he didn’t live more than a month. Did you?”

“No,” he said.

He continued to click through the information and the controls, looking for something which would give him some kind of inkling about what would happen if they deleted the last Weyoun’s memories, or if it was ill advised for any health related reasons, but he found nothing besides a button which read “Revert To Previous Generation.”

“Should we do it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

He clicked through the list of information again, and found another, much more noticeable gap.

“Hold on. He doesn’t have the memories from the sixth,” he said.

“I wonder why,” she said, confused.

“So I would be reverting him to the fifth,” he said. “If we decided to press the button.”

“Do it,” she said, without hesitation.

“What?”

“Do it. Weyoun-Five lived the longest. He had the most experience. And,” she said, lowering her voice, “I heard they terminated him because he was starting to question the Founders.”

“Oh,” Keevan said. “Interesting.”

“I say we revert to that one,” she said.

“Alright,” he said. “Here we go.”

He pressed the button. Immediately, the screen lit up, and a small icon spun as the memories of the previous clone were deleted.

“And you’re sure you want to activate him?” he asked. "Last call."

“Absolutely,” she said.

“Okay. Here goes.”

He pressed another button, and slowly, systems began to shut off, new sounds kicked in within the chamber, and a few moments later, the door clicked unlocked, and then opened.

Weyoun opened his eyes. He took his first breath. There was confusion in his eyes as he looked at both of them.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“That might take some time to explain,” Kilana said.

“Where is the Founder?” Weyoun asked, sitting up and looking around the whole room. “Why is it dark?”

“How blunt do you want us to be right now?” Keevan asked.

“Just tell me what’s going on,” he replied, growing more frantic.

In a cabinet, Kilana found a plain, heavy set of clothes similar to the prison garments she and the others were wearing, and she held those out to him. He didn’t take them, but continued to look at her. He needed answers. He wasn’t going to do anything they asked until he had answers.

“Rondac III has been destroyed. There are no Founders here. There are no Jem’Hadar. No other Vorta. We’re the only ones left,” she said. “Us and two others waiting outside. The Cardassians killed everyone else. There is nothing left. We need to leave.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“She just told you. The Cardassians destroyed Rondac III. Everything is gone,” Keevan said.

“No,” Weyoun said. “To me. The...me before me.”

He must have been somewhat disoriented, Kilana thought, trying to suppress a grin.

“How many _yous_ do you remember?” Keevan asked.

Weyoun started counting on his fingers and muttering under his breath.

“Four,” he said after a moment. “No. Five. Yes, five.”

“You’re actually the ninth,” Kilana said.

“How is that possible?”

“You don’t have the memories from the last two,” she said.

“Why don’t I?”

“Well, you didn’t get the ones from the eighth Weyoun, and we didn’t like the seventh, so we deleted his memories,” Keevan said, snatching the bundle of clothes from Kilana and shoving them into Weyoun’s chest. “If you’ll please just get dressed and come with us, we can explain on the way.”

Weyoun shook his head. “I need to see the Founder.”

“There are no Founders here. We told you that,” Keevan said.

“ _The_ Founder. My Founder. The one that was with me. Where is she?”

“I assume she’s on a Dominion ship somewhere,” Keevan said. “She’s not important. She can’t help you now.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re going to kill us all,” Keevan said, his voice gradually getting louder until he was nearly shouting. “The Cardassians and the Federation and the Bajorans are doing everything in their power to stop the Dominion threat, and it appears they aren’t above massacring entire planets to achieve that goal. We need to leave! _Now_!”

Weyoun stared at him, his eyes wide. “Alright,” he murmured, taking the clothes from him. “Alright. Fine.”

He dressed with shaking, uncoordinated hands, and stood slowly.

“Ready?” Kilana asked gently.

He nodded.

“Okay,” she said, taking his arm to hold him steady. “Now, I’ve got to warn you it’s a bit frightening walking through here and seeing...everything that happened. If you want, you can close your eyes and we’ll lead you out.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll be alright.”

Keevan stepped past them toward the door, more than ready to be out of there.

“Let’s go, then,” he said, and they all departed, back through the maze of broken glass and shattered and crushed incubators, out into the sunlight, where Borath and Gelnon were waiting, sitting on a low wall just outside the front door.

“Oh, a Weyoun,” Borath said unenthusiastically. “Lucky us.”

Weyoun looked at him but said nothing. His brain was still quite foggy. He didn’t recognize the voice or the face it belonged to, but recognized the man hopping off the wall to walk in front of him alongside Keevan as another Vorta. The other man who joined them on Kilana’s other side was also a Vorta, also unrecognizable.

“Is he okay?” Weyoun heard him ask her.

“He will be,” she said. “I doubt you can remember, but it’s kind of a lot to process when you first come out of the incubator.”

“Where are we going?” Weyoun whispered.

“We’re going to find a ship,” she said.

“Okay.”

* * *

They found the runabout in a warehouse behind the engineering lab, looking almost entirely untouched. Nothing was missing. Nothing was dismantled. It was almost too perfect. There was, however, one clue that it was very probably not a trap: a half-eaten salad left wilted and rotting on the table in the lounge, next to a spilled glass of juice, which had not only stained the table, but had also dripped onto the floor, leaving a large reddish purple stain on the carpet which reminded all of them unsettlingly of blood, even after Gelnon had managed to get it all cleaned up.

Four weeks went by in the vast expanse of space. To Keevan, all the stars they passed looked exactly the same, and he wasn’t sure how to read the controls, but Borath assured him that they were headed in the right direction for Kurill Prime, and for now, all he could do was trust him.

Gelnon kept mostly to himself, hiding away in the crew’s quarters he shared with Borath and Keevan and only coming out at mealtimes to remind them that they should probably eat something, or to tell them some indecipherable message he happened to have intercepted, which usually turned out to only been traders’ traffic reports.

The bridge, if it could even be called such, was quite small, and despite her knowledge of how to navigate a ship, Kilana mostly stayed out of the way as well. She didn’t feel Borath wanted her there anyhow. So, she stayed with Weyoun and tried to bring him up to date on everything she knew.

“Is he still alive?” he asked her as they sat on the floor of their shared quarters, each on opposite walls of the tiny room. “The eighth Weyoun, I mean.”

“I really don’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you much of what’s happened since the last few days before the attack.”

“What is he like?”

“Well,” she said, letting out a big sigh, “I’m sure if you asked the Founder, he would probably be the best Vorta there is. He’s obedient to a fault to the Founders. Ruthless. Uncaring, I would say.”

He nodded slowly. “I don’t remember being like that. Not in the end, anyway.”

“No?” she asked, not wanting to press.

As far as the Vorta went, he was generally regarded as one of the best in regards to the Founders’ designs and intentions.

“No,” he said. “I never intended to appear uncaring or without any kind of compassion. I never _wanted_ to hurt anyone. I didn’t take pleasure in it. But...sometimes it happened. You know the job.”

“I do,” she said.

“That’s why they…” he said, his voice trailing off as he looked at a spot on the floor, his expression pained. “They sabotaged a transporter.”

“I heard.”

“Normally transporter malfunctions don’t hurt. There’s a bit of confusion, nausea, uneasiness, but they get you back a few minutes later. It’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “But this was different. It felt like...like burning.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide, but she said nothing.

“And then nothing,” he said. “And then I woke up in the cloning facility.”

She nodded, and looked down at her hands which were folded on her knees. She had no memory of any of her previous deaths. And maybe, she thought, that was what kept her so loyal to the Founders for so long. She didn’t remember all the way they had disposed of her previous clones when they started showing signs of defectiveness. But he did. Somehow, he did. Maybe it was because of how they did it, maybe it was any number of other reasons. But it definitely explained what was wrong, in their eyes, with this version of Weyoun. He remembered the pain and the fear, and he remembered that they had done that to him, and that changed his perception of the Founders and their allies.

Even before that, though, he had questioned them. He had begun to wonder just why they allowed him no understanding of beauty or art or music. He had begun to look to others and ask questions. He had begun to think for himself, and that was dangerous. Had that happened now, rather than earlier, or had he been of a slightly lower rank and status, perhaps he would have been arrested like the rest of the Vorta on that ship rather than killed outright. But there was no sense in thinking too much about that. What was done was done. She knew that. They both did.

Suddenly, there came a chime at the door.

“Come in,” Kilana said, and the door whirred open, allowing Keevan to step inside.

“We’re entering orbit over Kurill Prime,” he said.

“Really?” she asked, getting quickly to her feet. “Have you done any scans? Do you know if there’s anyone down there?”

“Borath checked, but he says he can’t get an accurate reading because of how badly the security systems the Founders left behind have everything scrambled.”

“Are we going to land, or…”

“Borath says that it would probably be safest and easiest to leave the runabout in orbit and beam down to the planet,” Keevan said. “We can see what looks like buildings in what used to be the capital, so we’re going to check there first.”

“But no people?”

“We can’t tell. The numbers keep changing, fluctuating between zero and three hundred.”

“Three hundred?” Weyoun asked, standing now, too.

“Yes, but we can’t be certain that’s accurate,” Keevan said. “Not until we get down there and see for ourselves.”

“Alright,” Kilana said. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get down there.”

“We need to be prepared for whatever we might find,” he replied. “Do you know how to use the phaser I gave you?”

“It can’t be too difficult,” she said. “You just point and shoot, right?”

“Right. Just,” he said, somewhat nervous, “make sure you’ve got it set on stun. Okay?”

“Fine,” she said.

They followed him out to the bridge, where Gelnon and Borath were already waiting, preparing to beam down to the planet.

“Alright,” Borath said slowly, pressing a few last buttons which cut the engines. “That should do it.” He stood, and turned toward the others. “Everybody ready?”

There were a few nods and mumbled agreements.

“Good,” Borath said. “Five to beam down to the surface. And…”

Weyoun grabbed Kilana’s hand at the last second, holding it tightly.

“ _Energize_.”

A few moments later, they rematerialized on the surface of the planet, and found themselves in the middle of a small village, surrounded by little one-story houses, some of which were separated by waist-high fences. Outside one of the houses a woman was hanging laundry on a clothesline. The colors and designs on her clothing were very similar to the style which was familiar to them, but much looser-fitting. Her hair was long, and not styled like the Dominion Vorta who they had known. It hung loose around her shoulders, with the front tied back in a half-ponytail. Her ears were each decorated with half a dozen little earrings, connected by silver- and gold-colored chains.

“Excuse me,” Kilana said, approaching her.

The woman looked at them, smiling as she unfolded a pair of damp trousers and hung them over the line.

“Hello,” she said.

“We’re not from here,” Kilana said. “Well. We were. Not anymore.”

“I can see that,” the woman said with a laugh. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh,” Kilana hesitated, looking around. “Well, can you tell me how many of us there are?” she asked, her voice quiet, almost a whisper.

“There are about a thousand of us left on Kurill,” the woman said, smiling sadly.

“A thousand?” Weyoun asked, smiling as he approached, staying close by Kilana. “That’s…”

“Not very many,” the woman said, nodding. “I know. But we’re doing alright.”

“It’s more than we were expecting,” Weyoun said.

“We didn’t expect to find anyone alive here,” Borath said.

“Well,” the woman said, smiling more brightly, “you found us.” She picked up her basket, which was now empty. “Would you like to come inside? Dinner must be almost ready.”

She turned, nodding for them to follow her into her home, and after exchanging a few looks, they all silently decided it was alright. The first room they came to was the kitchen, where steam was pouring off a large pot which was situated on top of a stove. The woman went over to it and stirred it with a dark, flat wooden spoon.

“I’m Lurana, by the way,” she said, looking at them over her shoulder as they stood just inside the entryway.

No one said anything, so Kilana, as before, spoke up first.

“I’m Kilana. That’s Weyoun, and Keevan,” she said, gesturing to each of them as she said their names, “and Borath, and Gelnon.”

Lurana smiled again. “Lovely to meet you all,” she said. “I believe I’ve heard a few of those names before, actually.”

“We were…” Kilana started to say, but couldn’t decide the best way to put it.

“Dominion,” Borath finished for her. “We worked for the Dominion.”

“I know,” Lurana said softly, her smile faltering. She turned and continued stirring the contents of the pot. Then she wiped her hands on her apron. “Alright,” she said, opening a cabinet and pulling out a stack of eight plates, setting them on the counter. “One moment.” She disappeared through a doorway into the next room, and they heard her call, “Geren, Mila! Come to dinner, please!”

She reappeared, and behind her came a man and a small girl. The five of them stared in varying states of surprise.

“You have a daughter,” Kilana said.

“I do,” Lurana said. “Mila is three years old. She was born a year after the Founders left.”

“Hello, Mila,” Kilana said, smiling, and the girl hid behind her father. “I’ve never seen a Vorta child.”

“Neither had we,” Lurana said as she began scooping spoonfuls of the contents of the pot, a thick, brown sort of stew with vegetables and some kind of meat, onto plates.

“She was the first child born on Kurill Prime in, oh, probably three and a half decades,” the man, Geren, said. “Most of us didn’t even know if it was possible for Vorta to reproduce after everything the Founders did. Now, there are just over fifty children.”

“Not all from us, of course,” Lurana said with a laugh.

“No, we only have the one,” Geren said, bending to lift Mila up. “For now.”

“How wonderful,” Kilana said.

“Yes, we’re very happy,” Geren said.

“Everything is ready,” Lurana said. “Everybody grab a plate and let’s head into the dining room.”

The dining room, it turned out, was a room slightly larger than the kitchen they had entered through, with a low, round table, barely thirty centimeters off the floor, with mats all the way around it. Following Geren and Lurana’s example, they all sat down on a mat with their legs crossed, and set their plates down on the table in front of them.

“So,” Geren said, retrieving the bowl of bread from the center of the table and tearing off a piece before passing it around, “how long are you all planning on staying on Kurill Prime?”

“We were hoping we could stay for good,” Keevan said. “If we’re welcome and we can find a place to stay.”

“Really?” Lurana said, her eyebrows raised in interest. “Do you think any other Vorta would be interested in coming home after the war is over?”

“I’m not sure,” Keevan said.

“Most Vorta aren’t as anti-Dominion as you would expect,” Gelnon said.

“Oh,” Lurana said, nodding. “Well, that’s fine. I wouldn't expect everyone to come back all at once.”

“We also are the only survivors, as far as we know, of a planet-wide massacre, the goal of which, we assume, was to destroy a Dominion cloning facility,” Borath said. “So surviving the war looks like another impediment on your hope for everyone to come home.”

“Oh, my,” she said. “That’s terrible. You didn’t mention that.”

“It didn’t come up,” Borath said, dipping a large chunk of bread into his stew and then shoving it into his mouth.

“News doesn’t travel here fast, I take it?” Weyoun asked.

“No, unfortunately we get very little news from beyond our world,” Geren said. “The Founders blocked a lot of communications and destroyed most of our technology or took it with them when they left.”

“Before that, it wasn’t much better,” Lurana said. “We never communicated with the outside world. We were barely even allowed to communicate with each other until the last year before they left.”

“It was the strangest thing,” Geren said. “Over the course of a year, as more and more Founders and Jem’Hadar left, the ones who were still here started declassifying information and old documents and letting us socialize with one another. It was like they were trying to repair some of the damage they’d done over the last eight decades.”

“Why would they do that?” Weyoun asked. “That doesn’t seem like the Dominion.”

“It didn’t to us, either,” Geren said. “I don’t know why they did it. I just know that they did. And then they left. All at once. It was the strangest thing.”

Borath cleared his throat. “You don’t think they were planning on coming back, do you?” he asked. “This couldn’t have been some way of giving you a false hope for the future and then coming back and taking that all away?”

“I think they would have done that by now,” Lurana said. “If that was their plan.”

“Hm,” Borath hummed, shrugging.

“I would like to see some of the declassified documents,” Keevan said after a moment. “If I am allowed.”

“Sure,” Geren said, chewing on a piece of bread. “Tomorrow you can come with me to the city hall and I’ll show you whatever you want to see. And...any of the rest of you, too, you’re welcome to come.”

“Thank you,” Keevan said.

It was dark when they finished eating. Geren stood and collected the dishes, and he took them into the kitchen to begin washing them, allowing Mila to move over from his lap to her mother’s. She snuggled close against her chest before drifting off to sleep as Lurana gently stroked her hair.

“You’re welcome to stay the night here if you have nowhere else to go,” Lurana said. “Though, we only have two spare sleeping rooms, so some of you will have to share.”

“Thank you,” Keevan said. “That sounds fine.”

After sitting and talking a little while longer, she showed them to their rooms, each of which had one moderately large bed which was low to the ground the same way the dining room table had been. Regardless, they were much more comfortable than the bunks on the runabout had been.

Kilana settled into the bed, keeping to the far left so that there was enough room between her and Weyoun for comfort, and soon drifted off to a dark and dreamless sleep.

A little while later, however, she woke to the warmth and pressure of a body pressed against hers. She shifted groggily, and found that Weyoun had crossed the space between her side and his side of the bed and had wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly. She smiled sleepily and laid an arm across him. It was a foreign sort of feeling, but also oddly familiar in a way she couldn’t quite understand.

“I am sorry if I woke you,” he whispered.

“It’s alright,” she said. “But Vorta do not _snuggle_.”

She laughed quietly, and so did he.

“Perhaps they do,” he said. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet. Anyway, it feels nice.”

“It does,” she said. “Comforting.”

“Mhm,” he intoned. “Do you remember…”

“Lifetimes ago,” she said. “But yes, I think so.”

“Me, too,” he said, and with that, fell fast asleep at last.


End file.
